Sunday, January 19, 2014

Dishcloth, Vertical Tuck Stripe

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(Click on photos to enlarge)

﻿﻿slisen.blogspot.com﻿﻿﻿﻿

I ran onto a wonderful tucking technique from 'ridelikethewind', a gal on ravelry.com who shared the technique in really nice hat and mittens made with the same stitch pattern. To simplify things and to learn the mechanics, I made a dishcloth with some cotton yarn. It's quite a great stitch pattern with vertical stripes on one side and a vertical tuck pattern on the other...and no ribber needed. It makes wonderful dishcloths and I can see lots of applications for it. 'Ridelikethewind' used a punchcard machine to make her hat and mittens and I used my electronic Brother 965i. My dishcloths were made on my KX350 midgauge manual machine so this can be done on any machine. I urge you to pop in on Ravelry and check out 'Ridelikethewind's projects.

For vertical stripes to be properly knit, patterning must start with row #2 of a punch card or the electronic equivalent. See below for the stitch pattern and my notes on how to work it.

Machine:Brother KX350 Midgauge (7mm)

Yarn: Maysville 8/4
Cotton rug warp

Tension:4
to 5 (I prefer T5)

Gauge:4.5
sts, 17 rows = 1” in tuck

Size:9”
wide x 10”long

1)CO 46 (44)
sts with waste yarn and ravel cord.﻿﻿

2)T5,
E-wrap and K1R to left.

3)RC000,
beginning with needle 1, pull EON to HP
across.

4)Engage
the hold levers on the carriage.

5)K1R to
right.

6)*Change yarn color.

7)With a
flat edge or your fingers, push the needlesin
hold position back to upper working position.Then
pull the needles in lower working position out tohold
position.

8)K2R.**

9)Repeat
from * to ** to RC170 or desired length, continuing to change yarns and alternating needles each
time carriage is on the right hand side.End patterning with COR.﻿﻿

10) Take carriage off hold and K1R to the L.

11)Back
stitch bind off.

12)Add a
border if desired.

ELECTRONIC MACHINES:

This technique is much easier and less time
consuming done on a punch card or electronic machine.A single bed color changer would be a luxury
to aid changing yarns every 2 rows but certainly not a necessity.Don’t let not having a color changer keep you
from using this wonderful patterning.

﻿﻿

I have a Brother KH965i and used Stitchworld
pattern #256 with the elongate button activated.To my dismay, I didn’t get vertical stripes
but nice horizontal stripes, no matter if I started on row 2 or 1.So thinking thru my machine mechanics in
relation to the pattern, I concluded that the elongate key was the
culprit.This technique starts with row
2 of the Brother 820 punch card #2.The
elongate key freezes the pattern for 2 pattern rows, no matter which row number
is selected.Here are my 2 solutions:

1)Design
the pattern in DAK and download it to the machine, do NOT activate the elongate
key, and begin patterning with row 2.

2)Use
Stitchworld pattern #256, work pattern row #1, THEN turn on the elongate key. Then work the pattern as above, changing yarns
every 2 rows when carriage is on the left.

REMINDER: No matter which machine you use, the tuck patterning must begin with row 2 in the pattern repeat in order for the stripes to take effect.

It would definitely look good at the bottom of a jacket or sweater but it's a tuck pattern and wouldn't have the memory that actual ribbing would have. But I used cotton in the dishcloths; wool or acrylic might react differently. Give it a try and see how it behaves.